And that reminds me, did you ever notice how you can get a guided tour of almost any operation such as a Coke bottling plant, ice cream plant, brewery, even a sewage processing facility? But you'll never find a tour of a meat packing plant?

Maybe they just think it would just gross the most average person out, so they don’t even offer.

It would certainly not increase the sales or consumption of meat.

Because some member of PETA would suicide-bomb the place.

When I worked with a big cat sanctuary, I picked up chicken on a weekly basis from the local chicken processing plant (Perdue, if I remember correctly). I instantly became a vegetarian.

In the summer, huge semi trucks would be in the parking lot, full of thousands and thousands of chickens that had died from the heat during transport. We would receive chickens off of the processing line that, while dead, still had large, white, live worms crawling out of them. We got the same chickens off the same lines that were going to grocery stores, and they would smell awful and be smeared in shit and bile and feathers and who-know-what. And the people who worked there (mostly Hispanic immigrants) suffered horrendous injuries on a regular basis (one of our board members was a physician who treated them). And all I ever saw was the end of the line – I’m sure casual cruelty of the beginning of the process would’ve been even worse.

(Cattle and swine have it even worse.)

That might be a good reason now (PETA). But I remember during the summers when the scout troop would go on those guided tours, one summer, we were asked in a council meeting for suggestions on places we’d like to visit. The stench from the packing houses would permeate the entire city when they cleaned out the vats in the summertime. The smell was unbelievable and would carry for miles on the wind. Well when the question went up, I thought we should see just what it was that could generate such a stink, and the other 11–13 year olds were all for watching anything get butchered. The enthusiasm was there to the considerable distress of the horrified scout masters, one of which had the presence of mind to reply “we’ll look into it”.

Would you really like to see the killing floor??

Not now! But that is not necessarily a good thing, particularly from the aspect of the contributors of the steak and bacon involved.

Just pop the words “pink slime” into Google and read the 2009 NY Times article written by Michael Moss. They definitely don’t want you witnessing that.

After that article, as well as orhers, came out, various food places asserted they no longer use it in their meat. I don’t believe it. If there’s an extra penny of profit to be made they’ll be chasing it.

Who does not want to see baby chicks being thrown en masse into a grinder, alive?

I honestly don’t know of anyone that has asked for a tour.
But now that you mention it, there was a piece on NPR about a farmer given a tour of a hog processing plant. They were investigating if imitation calamari if made from pig butt-holes.
There are things you just don’t want to know.